Ralph Nader outlines 2016 plan

Ralph Nader insists that he’s done with his own presidential races, but he still has some plans for 2016.

“I’m going to find at least ten enlightened billionaires or multibillionaires and I’m going to have a criteria. Have they spoken out about where they think the country is going? And are they worried about it? And have they done things reflecting some sort of civic enlightenment and courage? And are they able to communicate? Obviously, they have the money. And I’m going to encourage them to run.”

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Nader says he’s fine if these billionaires don’t go the third party route, saying he wants to “break up this insipid, dull trist where the two parties are dialing for the same dollars. … They also make reporters like you yawn like crazy, trying to cover redundancy year after year, tinged with overwhelming trivia.”

“We really need a dynasty now? We’ve had twelve years of the Bushes, what — do you want eight more years of the Clintons? Do we really want a redux here or do we want fresh energy and refresh redirection?” Of his specific criticisms of Clinton, Nader says the former Secretary of State “never saw a weapons system she didn’t like, never challenged the Pentagon when she was on the Senate Armed Services Committee.”

Nader would like to see Sen. Barbara Boxer run, but assumes “she’s not willing to take the next step.”

“They’re all deferring to Hillary and, let me tell you, anyone who thinks Hillary will have cakewalk three and a half years from the next presidential election better look back at 2008 and see if that was a cakewalk. She’s going to have competitors.”

Nader will always be linked with the close 2000 election, in which some accused Nader of siphoning crucial votes away from then-Vice President Al Gore in his campaign against George W. Bush. Nader’s been a bit surprised to see the 43rd president enjoy a bit of a resurgence in public approval ratings.

“What happens when presidents leave office is the succeeding presidents do not attack them because they don’t want to be attacked by who succeeds them. So you don’t get the public reminders of the devastating economic policies against working families, and the working poor in this country by George W. Bush or the devastating foreign military quagmire that he got us in or the devastating tax cuts for the wealthy, which started huge deficits.”

Nader added, “It’s good to remind people that their political leaders let them down and the idea of a resurging in the polls indicate that contemporary historians — political or otherwise — are not doing their job.”

Nader didn’t let the current president off the hook, either, calling him a “con man” on economic policy.

“He told millions of Americans in 2008 running for president he was for a $9.50 minimum wage by 2011, never mentioned it in four years after that. Okay, and now see the State of the Union Address by President Obama in January and he said $9, not $9.50 by 2015, and he hasn’t said much at all since then. That’s what I mean by a con man. He raises the hopes for change and then he doesn’t follow through.”

Nader is out with a new collection of columns called “I Told You So,” and he expressed a bit of disappointment that Washington, D.C. rewards those who get things wrong over those like, well, himself.

“You’ve got Tom Friedman who’s wrong again and again and again on globalization, a cheerleader for multinational corporations. He was on Charlie Rose over 70 times. 70 times. And he was wrong. And I’ve been on Charlie Rose maybe a couple of times and not since 2004.”